— has 120 seats in the auditorium and has hosted 17 separate events this year.

When the Electric City Playhouse presented "The Taffetas" about two weeks ago, the theater's staff had to turn away more than 100 people at the box office despite offering multiple shows for three weeks.

The 120-seat theater on Murray Avenue, at the corner of Greenville Street, just wasn't big enough.

"After a quarter century, we've really outgrown this location," said the theater's executive director, Brian Hamilton. "We could do more shows a year. We could put out better productions. But we are running at our physical max and that's very difficult."

So the theater is expanding. And construction could start as early as October.

Hamilton announced Wednesday — after months of negotiations — that the theater is moving forward with plans to expand to a property on South Main Street, next door to The Fox Pub.

The leaders of the Electric City Playhouse, a mainstay in Anderson since 1984, plan to build a larger theater at 308 and 310 S. Main St., Hamilton said.

For at least a decade the South Main Street property has been an empty, open pit.

It is the one location on Main Street in downtown Anderson where the only thing left standing of the building is its very outer walls. The rest of the property has been gutted down to the ground. Plywood, warped and faded, is nailed to the front of the crumbling front wall. Weeds lean out of the open frame of a second-floor window. Just beyond the building's front is a drop down to the dirt below.

Oddly enough, Hamilton said that empty pit — with just its very outside brick walls left standing — is what made the property appeal to the theater's board of directors.

The board began really discussing the dream of expanding the theater about three years ago. Since then it has looked at 18 different properties, Hamilton said. He said most of those properties required too much demolition to suit the specifics of a theater.

"The space next to the Fox Pub is perfect because we don't have to take anything out," Hamilton said. "It allows us to build a new building with an old front. We are just adding a marquee and giving it new life."

The building was being offered for sale at the price of $89,000, according to a real estate brochure for Spectrum Commercial realty. Hamilton said the building's owner donated the land and the structure to the nonprofit community theater.

Richard S. Viveen of Destin, Fla., was the last owner of the property, county tax records show. However, the last time plans were announced for the property was in 1999, when Nicholas Pratt and Felice Moody bought the property from the city of Anderson.

At the time, Pratt told the Independent Mail that they planned to build apartments, retail space and parking at the site. Renovations to the site then were expected to cost about $500,000.

Hamilton did not want to discuss any estimates on how much the entire project will cost on Wednesday, nor did he want to talk about how much the theater's board has raised in donations for the project.

He said he didn't want to disclose specifics on the cost or money they've raised because they are still looking for contractors for the project.

However, Hamilton and two board members, Jay Wright and John Martin, said donors have already stepped forward with significant donations.

"We have enough to pay for the architectural plans, the permits, the façade and a new roof," Hamilton said. "We are trying to look at this entire process as realistically as possible. But we believe if we don't try, we will never succeed."

The new theater will have at least a 250-seat auditorium and will have a simple design and an intimate feel for smaller productions, Hamilton said. He also said the theater will not abandon its current location. He said the organization will maintain the Murray Avenue theater as a place for rehearsals and smaller community events.

John Martin, co-owner for The Fox Pub and a member of the theater's board of directors, said the first goals are to roof the building, put in new windows, repair the façade and close it in to protect it from further damage.

"The plan that the board has is very realistic," Martin said. "This is something that will be a human magnet."

"And you can't get much better than having a restaurant next to a theater," he added.

City officials have met with members of the theater's board of directors. Hamilton said the city's downtown manager, Arlene Young, has been supportive of the project. Anderson Mayor Terence Roberts said he wasn't present in those meetings, but he's heard of the theater's plans to expand.

"This is probably one of the last code enforcement issues on Main Street," Roberts said. "For the Electric City Playhouse to be able to acquire this building and to be able to put a roof on it and to be able to secure it from the weather — that is a very positive thing."